Emilio Betti

thumb|Emilio Betti Emilio Betti (20 August 1890, Camerino – 11 August 1968, Camorciano di Camerino) was an Italian jurist, Roman Law scholar, philosopher and theologian. He is best known for his contributions to hermeneutics, part of a broad interest in interpretation. As a legal theorist, Betti is close to interpretivism. Betti was one of the members of the drafting commission for the Italian civil code of 1942.

Betti's intellectual support of fascism between the end of World War I and the beginning of the 1920s led him to be arrested in 1944, in Camerino. Betti remained in prison for about a month, as decided by the Comitato di Liberazione Nazionale. In August 1945, Betti was presented to the court and absolved of every accusation. Betti is perhaps best known for his work in hermeneutics.

He took issue with the hermeneutic views of Hans Georg Gadamer and argued that interpreters should attempt to reconstruct the author's intentions. His work influenced the work of E. D. Hirsch, the chief English-language spokesman for authorial intention. However, his influence in English has been limited by the lack of translations of his hermeneutic work.